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Indicted Giuliani Associate Willing To Testify GOP Rep. Devin Nunes Went To Europe For Biden Dirt; Bolton: It's Time To Speak Up Again; WH Helped Arrange Call Between Giuliani & Pompeo Following Handover Of Unproven Allegations On Bidens; NYC Tattoo Parlor Blends Creativity And History; Biden Speaks On Graham And Ukraine Scandal; VP Mike Pence Visits Troops In Iraq; Former Officials Describe Sondland's Phone Call To President Trump As Major Security Breach. Aired 12-1p ET

Aired November 23, 2019 - 12:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[12:00:00]

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MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN HOST: Hello, thanks for joining me. I'm Martin Savidge in for Fredricka Whitfield. Stunning new developments in the impeachment inquiry. As first reported by CNN, the lawyer for indicted Rudy Giuliani associated Lev Parnas says that his client is willing to testify about secret foreign meetings between Republican Congressman Devin Nunes and disgraced Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin.

Nunes is as you know a key Trump ally and the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee. Parnas says the congressman's meeting with Shokin was to dig up dirt on Joe Biden and his son, something that Nunes brought up time and again during the public impeachment hearings.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. DEVIN NUNES (R-CA): No conspiracy theory is too outlandish for the Democrats. You would think they would take some interest in Burisma and you think they would be interested in Joe Biden.

We need to subpoena Hunter Biden.

I think one of the mothers of all conspiracy theories is that somehow the President the United States would want a country that he doesn't even like, he doesn't want to get foreign aid to, to have the Ukrainians start an investigation into Bidens.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAVIDGE: CNN's Marshall Cohen's here and Marshall, what do we know about this meeting, I guess I should say alleged meeting between the congressman and Victor Shokin.

MARSHALL COHEN, CNN REPORTER: That's right Martin so this information is coming from the attorney for Lev Parnas, an associate of Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City Mayor and now a personal attorney for the President. So Lev Parnas, he's indicted, he's in some trouble here fighting a criminal case up in New York.

And it looks like he is trying to tease out this information that he might have to offer, whether it's to investigators, whether it's to Congress, we'll see where it goes. The claims are this. He says that he knows that Congressman Devin Nunes was in Vienna last year, meeting with this man Viktor Shokin, the former Prosecutor General of Ukraine, the top prosecutor there who was forced out in 2016 under pressure from the West from Joe Biden and others for not doing enough to get tough on corruption.

That information from Lev Parnas, he says he's willing to testify under oath before congressional committees to make that allegation against Devin Nunes who sits on some of those committees that are involved in the inquiry. It is yet to be seen if this is a further corroborated.

I will tell you Devin Nunes would not comment to CNN but he did tell the right-wing outlet Breitbart that these allegations are false.

SAVIDGE: Yes, I think you framed it well, Marshall that you know, here's the man who's in trouble and now says, he's got some key information. It does require bearing out. All right, thank you very much.

COHEN: Thank you.

SAVIDGE: Former national security adviser John Bolton says that he is working on his political action committee one day after he says that his Twitter account was liberated from unfair suppression. The former senior administration official promoted the pack on Twitter this morning.

He also tweeted this. "Let's get back to discussing critical national security issues confronting America. The threats are grave and growing. The presidency in control of the House and the Senate will all be decided in less than one year. It's time to speak up again."

CNN National Correspondent, Kristen Holmes joins me now from outside the White House and Kristin, what do we make of all of this.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think one thing when he talked about working on a super pack. It's clear he's enjoying the publicity right now, enjoying the limelight, maybe trying to get a little something out of it.

But I think most people who have their eyes on Bolton aren't really interested in his pack. What they're interested in is whether or not he's going to testify and the reason being that over the last two weeks, we saw witness after witness who really framed this as a Bolton being a critical witness in this impeachment inquiry.

They said that he was in meetings with Ukrainian leaders. We learned from one aide that he actually met privately with President Trump to try and get him to release the military aid to Ukraine so why hasn't he testified? Well, essentially his lawyer said that he would only testify if a

court ordered him to do so and Democrats decided that they would rather choose time over information, issuing a subpoena to Bolton, having him bring it to the courts would take a long time and as we have discussed Democrats, are hoping that their part of this impeachment inquiry will be over by Christmas.

Again, that is a hope but this re-emergence of Bolton might change their minds. We've seen him sending tweet after tweet, cryptic messages, at one point saying that, as you said, the White House had blocked his Twitter.

And then saying maybe it was because they were afraid of what he might say. That's a pretty eye-opening statement right there and one thing I want to note here, which is, it has a lot of antennas raised is that President Trump was asked on this long interview with Fox and Friends yesterday, if they had, the White House had in fact blocked Bolton's Twitter.

[12:05:00]

He said of course not and then he said Bolton and I had a good relationship. The reason of course that this is causing people to speculate what exactly Bolton knows is because we know President Trump is someone who if he gets hit at, he hits back and this is a very complementary phrase for somebody who is kind of attacking him on Twitter and of course said he quit the administration.

So a lot of questions here. We know Bolton's communicating on Twitter right now so we'll keep our eyes on that.

SAVIDGE: Yes, very interesting. Let me ask you this, CNN of course learning these new details of an orchestrated effort by the White House to connect Rudy Giuliani with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo right as Giuliani was pushing for an investigation of the Bidens. What do you know on that?

HOLMES: Well, so this is right. This is a very interesting development. The State Department releasing these documents, a hundred pages of them under a court order so not willingly doing so and essentially they show that Pompeo spoke to Giuliani twice before Giuliani gave over that packet of information back several months ago, that had what he believed was dirt on the Bidens, I already said who was dirt on the Bidens.

Now, this is interesting for two reasons. That second call as you said, was orchestrated by the White House. Giuliani says that he couldn't get in touch with Pompeo so he reached out directly to the President's personal secretary who then put the two of them in touch so this important because well, it shows that the White House, no matter how much they tried to deny that they didn't know what was going on, that they did know excuse me what was going on with Rudy Giuliani in Ukraine.

This puts them at the center of it. It's hard to deny something when you're working on it, they're actively and the second thing is that we know that Pompeo has tried to distance himself from all of this, from the inquiry and from that package of information.

That packet of information about the Bidens. This again brings him directly in to the entire impeachment inquiry.

SAVIDGE: It does, sort of deny if you're having direct conversations. Kristen Holmes, thank you very much. So let's talk about all this now. Here with me is the Senior Editor at the Atlantic, Ron Brownstein and national politics reporter for The Wall Street Journal - Journal, excuse me, Sabrina Siddiqui, am I saying that right, Siddiqui?

SABRINA SIDDIQUI, NATIONAL POLITICS REPORTER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Siddiqui.

SAVIDGE: Siddiqui, OK, thanks.

SIDDIQUI: And it works just fine.

SAVIDGE: No, my apologies, I want to get it right. Thank you both for joining us this morning. Ron, first to you. We're learning of course that Devin Nunes may have met with this disgraced Ukrainian prosecutor about getting dirt on Joe Biden and I'm wondering, does this really hurt the Republicans defense of President Trump because it would seem so.

RON BROWNSTEIN, SENIOR EDITOR, THE ATLANTIC: Well, look, I mean you know, one way of looking what we've seen over the last week - two weeks in the in the House Intelligence Committee is that Republicans will defend Trump on anything.

You know, that there that there's no set of facts that would cause them to kind of look at it independently and say, is this something I should break from. That's one way of interpreting it. The Nunes meeting offers another way of interpreting it which is that they are just fine with the idea of soliciting.

Congressional Republicans are just fine with the idea of soliciting foreign interference in the 2020 election if they believe, it will help their side to win. It's certainly you know, the first explanation is hardly charitable. The second explanation is even more maligned and the fact that you know - we have to consider the source.

We don't know if this - if this you know, if this actually occurred but if in fact Nunes is engaged in the same activity as Rudy Giuliani, it certainly changes the entire frame in which every comment he has made over the last two weeks or so can be viewed.

SAVIDGE: Sabrina, to Ron's point here, this is you know of course, not just anyone, this is the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee. Someone who is accused Chairman Adam Schiff about being transparent enough during the impeachment proceedings so how do Republicans square this?

SIDDIQUI: Well, it's going to be incredibly difficult for Republicans to defend Devin Nunes if this allegation is in fact true because I think that if you look at the way that Devin Nunes comported himself during the hearings so far on Capitol Hill, he was very much fixated as were are the Republicans on trying to undercut the testimony of these witnesses.

But now he may be directly implicated in this scheme to try and pressure Ukraine to launch political investigations sought by the President in order to receive critical U.S. military assistance.

It's also important to remember that Devin Nunes has had credibility problems from the outset. This is someone who was on the transition team for President Trump who during the course of the House led Russia investigation had to temporarily step aside because he met in secret with the White House and disseminated classified information that would have bolstered the President's narrative pertaining to that investigation.

And so he has very much been a Trump loyalist this entire time but this actually puts him at the center of the impeachment inquiry that his committee is led - is in charge of investigating.

SAVIDGE: Yes, there was some question that not only would make him a hypocrite, it could also be there could be some criminal element here. But Ron, to this, we're beginning to hear from as we just said, former national security adviser John Bolton. Do you think that his re- emergence here shows us that he is any closer to testify before congress?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, first, I think John Bolton looks ridiculous. I mean you know, the entire country - we've only had three you know impeachment processes before and the entire country really is waiting to hear from him and he is dropping little coy hints on Twitter you know, as if he was you know a reality or a TV star celebrity trying to like gin up interest in his next movie.

I mean if he has something to say, he has a forum in which to say it, I mean you know, the House Intelligence Committee is more than willing to hear from him. He is now a private citizen, he does not work for the administration, he's gone through this elaborate kind of maneuver to kind of forestall this by going through the courts, not clear to me that he has to do that in response to a subpoena.

[12:10:00]

Now, the fact that one of his tweets said that you know in a year we're going to be picking another President control of the house and the Senate, he is a loyal Republican so if his ultimate testimony may not do exactly what Democrats want to hear him say despite what is you know, associates have already said.

But if he has something to say, there's a place for him to say it and it isn't Twitter.

Right. It's before Congress I believe and as you know Sabrina, Bolton is one of the key figures, in fact he overshadowed just about all the testimony that we heard in those public hearings.

The White House still fighting subpoenas from Congress. Do you see the White House and its obstinance here continuing? SIDDIQUI: Oh absolutely and just to Ron's point, it's important to

reinforce just how essential John Bolton's testimony is to this investigation according to at least what some other officials testified on Capitol Hill.

He likened this entire plot against Ukraine to a drug deal so you know, he could appear as some of the other officials have done it, he's not the only one the White House has tried to block from appearing on Capitol Hill. There are individuals who testified, who still work in the Trump administration but they were willing to comply with those subpoenas.

I don't think the White House is going to let up in any way but what Democrats on Capitol Hill have said is they don't want to wait for this court process over subpoenas to play out. They believe they have enough evidence to move forward. They are eager to wrap up at least the House side of this by the December break when they recess for the Christmas holidays.

And so I think you're going to see the House Intelligence Committee draft up its report, deliver that to the Judiciary Committee where they will draft articles of impeachment and try and move by the end of December to a full vote on the House floor.

SAVIDGE: Yes, it could be a completely different story if we get to the Senate. Sabrina Siddiqui and Ron Brownstein, great to see you both. Thank you.

BROWNSTEIN: Thanks, Martin.

SIDDIQUI: Thank you.

SAVIDGE: Still ahead in the CNN NEWSROOM we'll answer some of the big legal questions you might still have remaining around the impeachment inquiry.

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[12:15:00]

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SAVIDGE: We are continuing to follow several major developments that could impact the impeachment proceedings. CNN's learning now of new allegations that Congressman Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intel committee who led a fierce defense of the President during the hearings went to Vienna last year to dig up dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden.

A lawyer for Rudy Giuliani's indicted associate that Lev Parnas says that his client is willing to tell Congress all about those meetings. Michael Zeldin is a former federal prosecutor and a CNN legal analyst and Michael, good to see you.

MICHAEL ZELDIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Good morning. SAVIDGE: Let me ask you this. First of all, this is a person who is

under indictment, in trouble and now says he's got information that many people might want to hear. Is there a reason we should be suspicious?

ZELDIN: Yes, of course. Whenever a person is in jeopardy and cooperation is their ticket out, you have to look very sceptically or at least very carefully at what they're saying because the motivation behind it may not be purely truth-telling.

SAVIDGE: All right but he could in fact be telling the truth and if so, what do you think of the possible implications of Devin Nunes meeting with the former Ukrainian prosecutor to get dirt on the Bidens and then not disclosing that during these hearings?

ZELDIN: Well, he should have if it's true, he should have recused himself from the proceedings. He cannot be if you will, a witness and judge in the same undertaking and so Devin Nunes, if this is true should have had no role in that hearing. He should have recused himself, he should have replaced himself on that committee with somebody else and it is characteristic of what we saw from Nunes during the Mueller probe, where he has hidden his behavior in a way that advantage to the President.

And that's unbecoming of anyone, no less a sitting congressman.

SAVIDGE: Is there any way it could be criminal?

ZELDIN: It's not clear to me that it involves criminal wrongdoing. If the sort of the essence of the allegation is that he went over to Vienna to speak to Shokin, the former prosecutor general who was replaced for corruption allegations to inquire about the Bidens.

I'm not sure what in that is criminal. It's inappropriate but Martin, I'm not sure what I see in it that raises criminal liability for Nunes.

SAVIDGE: And one last thing on this subject the - Mr. Parnas, if he does come and testify before Congress how does he avoid self- incrimination?

ZELDIN: Well, that's the struggle that his lawyer Bondi is having. He is trying to find a way for Parnas to testify without violating any rights against self-incrimination and that's a hard dance to work out.

Maybe they're trying to get some sort of global plea by which he pleads guilty, he cooperates, he gets a reduced sentence and they can wrap it up in some singular opportunity. But if they can't wrap up the criminal allegations against him, then protecting his Fifth Amendment right while testifying before Congress is going to be a hard dance for him to engage in.

SAVIDGE: Yes, that's what I was thinking. And I want to switch now to former Trump national security adviser John Bolton who is once again hinting that he has information to share, tweeting that it's time to speak up again. [12:20:00]

Democrats haven't yet subpoenaed him, fearing that it'll turn into this long protracted court battle. Is there anything preventing Bolton from coming forward and testifying like other witnesses have done?

ZELDIN: The only thing that seems to be preventing Bolton from doing that is his desire to retain his political viability. There's no reason for Bolton not to come forward in my estimation especially, if he's given a subpoena.

Look, the evidence about Bolton has been so far that he was the adult in the room. He is the person who shut down the meeting with Sonderland - Sondland and Ukrainians when they raised the quid pro quo. He's the one who told Fiona Hill to go to the lawyers to report this.

So he has been reported as the adult in the room and so he has a continuing obligation it seems to me, to come forward and give Congress his testimony and stop you know being cute by one half by saying, he's waiting for a court to give him the say-so because he has the say so on his own initiative.

SAVIDGE: Right, I think many people are disappointed so far because they believe he has such an important role yet to be revealed. Michael Zeldin, thank you very much for joining me.

ZELDIN: Thank you Martin.

SAVIDGE: Still ahead, Michael Bloomberg. He's making a massive television ad by. Another sign that he's getting ready to jump into the 2020 race but there are some Democratic candidates who are not welcoming the former New York Mayor.

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SAVIDGE: Now to the 2020 race where billionaire Michael Bloomberg appears to be one step closer to formally launching his Democratic bid for President. The former New York Mayor has bought over $30 million in TV ads over the next two weeks that means you'll see a lot of him.

That's more than what the entire Democratic field has spent on television advertising in the race so far excluding fellow billionaire Tom Styer. Joining me now with more is CNN politics and business correspondent Cristina Alesci and Cristina, where's Bloomberg planning to air these ads? All over or in specific places?

CRISTINA ALESCI, CNN POLITICS AND BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Some specific states, large states like New York and California for sure and Texas but these ads will have biographical information about Michael Bloomberg which distinguishes them from some of the other ad spending he's announced before, perhaps an even stronger signal that he will jump into this race maybe as early as this week.

Bigger picture here though, this kind of money and this kind of spending really reinforces Michael Bloomberg's message which is he's going to - he's going to put whatever it costs to beat Donald Trump into this race.

There doesn't seem to be a budget for his potential campaign or just anti-Trump ads to that you know, to that note. Look, he's going to take fire from progressive candidates like Bernie Sanders, like Elizabeth Warren, who don't want billionaires and don't want billionaire money in this race.

In fact Bernie Sanders already issued a statement saying, "I'm disgusted by the idea that Michael Bloomberg or any other billionaire thinks they can circumvent the political process and spend tens of millions of dollars to buy our elections. It's just the latest example of a rigged political system that we're going to change when we're in the White House."

Clearly, Michael Bloomberg making the political calculation that's spending this kind of money will benefit him way more than it hurts him and that's really for three main reasons. One, he spent tens of millions and hundreds of millions of dollars on his mayoral campaigns and he won as the Mayor of New York City three times.

He won those campaigns. Also after he left office, he spent billions of dollars on liberal causes like gun safety and climate change and he really bolstered his standing with liberal and democratic voters who are now familiar with his efforts on those fronts.

Thirdly, he's continued to spend on broad Democratic issues like anti- Trump ads and voter registration drives. Those two things really again, building his Democratic base, making it less likely for the Democrats at the moderate end of the spectrum certainly to attack him.

So those are the things - those are the reasons why Michael Bloomberg feels like this kind of spending, although it's going to draw some criticism, probably will accrue to his benefit, Martin.

SAVIDGE: Yes, well, as I often say it's good to be a billionaire. Cristina Alesci, great to see you. Thank you very much.

ALESCI: Thank you.

SAVIDGE: Still to come, CNN's Don Lemon sits down and speaks with Joe Biden on impeachment. What he has to say about the GOP's claims against him and his strong words for Senator Lindsey Graham but first, in this week's Start Small Think Big, we visit daredevil tattoo.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHELLE MYLES, CO-OWNER, DAREDEVIL TATTOO: This neighborhood was the birthplace of modern tattooing. I've known my business partner Brad since high school. He was always like oh, they've legalized tattooing. Let's open up a shop.

We opened up in 1997 when tattooing was actually legalized, began in New York City.

BRAD FINK, CO-OWNER, DAREDEVIL TATTOO: We didn't know what we were doing but we were both determined to make it work. Do you want somebody who is capable of applying a good tattoo but you also want somebody that is able to put you at ease.

Now - hang in there buddy. Because there's a pain factor in tattooing.

MYLES: Well, I tattooed Whoopi Goldberg with that big dragon on her shoulder. We never thought in a million years that tattooing would be something embraced by popular culture.

[12:29:50]

FINK: And this as to why we did this museum is to share these artefacts that we've collected throughout these years.

MYLES: Thomas Edison invented the first perforating pen. And the tattooers at the time were trying to figure out how they could incorporate it into tattooing. Brad actually has one of the Thomas Edison engraving pens here in our collection.

The key to our success was being able to buy the space that we're in because in New York City it's so difficult for small businesses to stay in business. Your rent can double, triple or quadruple.

FINK: If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere -- right?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SAVIDGE: We're hearing more from former vice president, Joe Biden in his exclusive interview with CNN's Don Lemon. And in it, Biden weighs in on impeachment and says that his former Senate colleague Lindsey Graham should be embarrassed for trying to launch an investigation into the Biden family even though there has been no evidence of wrongdoing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DON LEMON, CNN HOST: I want to talk to you about impeachment.

JOE BIDEN (D), FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Yes.

[12:35:00]

LEMON: Do you think Democrats have made their case? Do you see an impeachable offense?

BIDEN: I think it's clear on the record that Donald Trump went in. in addition to the violations that have been uncovered relative to the Mueller report, I think Donald Trump, it's no doubt he's asked foreign countries to interfere in our electoral process -- period. It's been established. Now Republicans are trying to make that as that has nothing to do with anything. The truth is, it's a violation of the Constitution to do that. I think the case has been made clear.

What the Republicans do when it gets over to the senate where the actual trial begins -- impeachment/indictment. That means an indictments. So I believe he should be impeached and have the Senate try, whether or not they are high crimes and misdemeanors that would cause him to be thrown out of office. That's a decision for them to make.

I hope they have the courage. I hope they remember, this is a moment -- a moment when their record is going to go down in history as to whether they played it by the rules.

LEMON: Republicans are still trying to make this about you and your son.

BIDEN: Sure they are but you know, look, there's not a scintilla of evidence that I did anything wrong. If you notice, what's happened is the entire spectrum of people involved, from our folks in the E.U. who are friends, to the IMF, the International Monetary Fund, to our allies, to the Ukrainians -- not a single shred that I did anything other than my job and really well.

LEMON: That has to anger you because they keep bringing you up over and over. You say there's not --

BIDEN: Sure it does.

LEMON: -- a scintilla of evidence.

Let me ask you because Lindsey Graham now, who you've worked with, who was a friend, who I know there's video of him saying oh, you are the nicest person he's ever met, you are the greatest man. And now he's asking the State Department for documents for you and your son. What do you say to Lindsey Graham and folks like him?

BIDEN: They're asking Lindsey Graham, they have him under their thumb right now. They know he knows if he comes out against Trump he's got a real tough road for reelection, number one.

I am disappointed. Quite frankly, I'm angered by the fact. He knows me. He knows my son. He knows there's nothing to this.

Trump is now essentially holding power over him that even the Ukrainians wouldn't yield. Ukrainians would not yield to, quote, "investigate Biden". There's nothing to investigate about Biden or his son. And Lindsey is about to go down in a way that I think he is going to regret his whole life.

LEMON: What do you say to him?

BIDEN: I say, Lindsey, I just -- I'm just embarrassed by what you're doing for you. I mean, my Lord. And it just -- I mean --

LEMON: Have you watched these hearings?

BIDEN: I've watched some of them because I've been on the road.

LEMON: What do you think of the defense when you hear them questioning the witnesses and the patriotism of these people who have come forward?

BIDEN: It angers me. It angers me, especially Trump trying to intimidate witnesses while they're testifying. What kind of man is this? That alone is enough for him to be viewed as a pariah.

LEMON: Yes.

BIDEN: I mean, think about it.

LEMON: But it seems you talk about always healing the party (ph) and working with people on the other side. I don't know if this is the same party as when you were senator, and when you were vice president.

Can you work with this party? Can you heal this divide?

BIDEN: With Trump defeated, yes, I can. And where we can't work with them, we go out and defeat them.

BIDEN: I've got to ask you. This is a grueling process.

BIDEN: Yes.

LEMON: You are 77 years old. You and Bernie Sanders the oldest. Why are you the guy? Do you have the stamina? Why are you the guy?

BIDEN: Come out and run with me, man. Come to the gym with me and lift with me. Thank God, I know it can change in a moment, I know that. You never can take for granted your health.

But I'm in great health. I'm in physical health. And again, I just -- just -- just sort of watch me. Like I was doing a parade and there were some Trumpites there, you know, it was Fourth of July parade and I said, Come run with me, Jack? Come run with me.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SAVIDGE: There is a whole lot more still to CNN's exclusive interview with Joe Biden. That will air today in the 2 p.m. Eastern hour.

Vice President Mike Pence making an unannounced visit to the troops in Iraq today. This morning Pence and his wife Karen serving an early Thanksgiving lunch to service members of the Al-Assad Air Force Base. Pence also spoke with the Iraqi Prime Minister Al-Mahdi by phone during his visit and addressed the deadly anti-government protests that have been going on since October.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He pledged to me that they would work to protect and respect peaceful protestors as a part of the democratic process here in Iraq. I also encouraged him to listen to those who are protesting and their calls for reform.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:40:03]

SAVIDGE: It was just yesterday that three people were killed and 26 others hurt after Iraqi security forces broke up protests in Baghdad.

Coming up, Syracuse University is trying to stem the backlash after a series of racist and anti-Semitic incidents. What students are saying now.

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SAVIDGE: Police have arrested a Syracuse University student in connection with a series of graffiti markings around campus. The graffiti was in support of protests against racist incidents that have taken place at the university in recent weeks.

As Polo Sandoval explains students are upset with the university's handling of the incident.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A tipping point came on November 13th amid a string of racists incidents in and around the Syracuse University campus. At least a dozen cases of racist and anti-Semitic graffiti in two weeks have prompted student activists to stage a peaceful occupation of a university building that lasted eight days.

[12:45:04]

SANDOVAL: It wasn't until university chancellor Kent Syverud signed off on 16 of the activists' 19 demands that they ended the protest on Thursday. Among them expulsion for students involved in hate crimes, mandatory diversity education for new faculty and roommate options based on mutual interests.

University official Marianne Thomson said she hoped students felt heard and validated.

MARIANNE THOMSON, SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY OFFICIAL: I hate that our students feel -- feel -- feel the ways that they do right now but I understand it. But I do have heart because they came with solutions. They came wanting to talk and the university listened and will continue listening.

SANDOVAL: But student activists are not satisfied. On Thursday they started their call for the resignation of chancellor Syverud and other university officials citing a lack of confidence in this administration.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He never signed the demands as we had originally asked. He never came for help with us and so as far as we're concerned, at this point once we called for his resignation, we have a line drawn in the sand that we cannot retract from. SANDOVAL: These two student movement organizers asked not to be

identified due to security concerns and their mission to speak and draw a unified space (ph) and voice.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're asking him to resign respectfully. A lot of these issues started when he came here in office in 2014.

SANDOVAL: In spite of the new measures and added security on campus, these two minority students say they feel threatened and unheard. Chancellor Syverud responding in a Friday statement to CNN, "These events would have challenged any leadership team. We didn't get everything right and we have learned a lot. My focus has been and remains on our students who have clearly and thoughtfully expressed their hurt and frustration and what the university can do better. And we will."

This week the university suspended four of its students for participating in a verbal assault directed at an African-American student. This incident, one of many that left a campus in crisis and a group of young activists not willing to compromise.

Polo Sandoval, CNN -- Syracuse, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SAVIDGE: Coming up, that phone call between Ambassador Sondland and President Trump that was overheard at a restaurant in Kiev is raising security questions. We'll explain why.

But, first, domestic violence is a leading cause of injury to women in the U.S. and many of them have pets that they don't want to leave behind when they flee the abuse. One of this year's top ten CNN Heroes came up with a solution to keep women and their pets together.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Noah's Animal House is built right on the campus of the women's shelters.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good boy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So that women fleeing an abusive relationship don't have to choose between leaving and leaving their pets behind.

We have had clients from 21 states. They're driving thousands of miles. That tells you the need and that tells you the power of the relationship between the women and their pets when you watch the woman come through the doors and then they see their pet.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I missed you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everything is right in the world for a little while.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SAVIDGE: To vote for your favorite top ten hero, go to CNNheroes.com.

[12:48:27]

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SAVIDGE: Amid the flurry of impeachment hearings over the past two weeks on Capitol Hill, one of the most shocking things we learned about were details regarding that unsecured call that E.U. Ambassador Gordon Sondland made to President Trump from a restaurant in Ukraine.

Here is how Sondland described the call during testimony Wednesday.

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GORDON SONDLAND, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE E.U.: I remember I was at a restaurant in Kiev and I have no reason to doubt that this conversation included the subject of investigations. Again, given Mr. Giuliani's demand that President Zelensky make a public statement about investigations, I knew that investigations were important to President Trump. We did not discuss any classified information.

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SAVIDGE: After learning about that call, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul tweeted quote, "Doing so on a cell phone from Kiev means the whole world was listening in," -- unquote.

Let's bring in Jonathan Wackrow, he's a former Secret Service agent under President Obama. Good to see you again -- sir.

JONATHAN WACKROW, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Hey, nice to see you -- Martin.

SAVIDGE: So you were once assigned to the national security advisor and you traveled on numerous sensitive diplomatic trips. What's the impact of the way that this call was made?

WACKROW: Listen, Martin -- when I first started hearing about this I was absolutely shocked. I mean, there was just a series of bad decisions that were made by the ambassador.

I mean listen, bad decision number one was his decision to make an unsecured telephone call to the President of the United States. Mindful he was in the Ukraine at the time. Their telecommunications system is heavily influenced by the Russians.

Bad decision number two was that he decided to talk about a foreign leader with the President of the United States on that unsecure phone call.

And bad decision number three, he did it in the middle of a public restaurant where everybody within earshot could at least hear one side of that conversation. I mean listen, at the end of the day what this amounts to is just pure security negligence on the ambassador's part.

Every diplomatic member of the United States foreign service understands that they are a target of potential foreign intelligence, you know, collection operations, and Ambassador Sondland was a high value target. He should have known better. His actions are -- you know, just baffle me.

SAVIDGE: You, by the way, have firsthand experience about how unsecure calls in eastern Europe can be listened to, don't you?

WACKROW: Absolutely. This is why I'm a little bit passionate about this topic is because back in 2008 while working with the United States Secret Service I had my own telephone conversations recorded by a foreign entity.

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WACKROW: The way that I knew this was that counterparts at the U.S. Embassy in Budapest, you know, came to me and said, hey listen, you know, just advising you again that conversations are always being monitored by foreign intelligence.

We knew that going in. We maintained operational security and communication security protocols. We knew never to talk about sensitive things on unsecure lines.

Listen, I knew that and I'm not the ambassador to the E.U. Sondland should have known better and taken better protocols to, you know, protect that conversation.

SAVIDGE: I presume that he would have had some sort of lesson about all of this, wouldn't he?

WACKROW: Absolutely. I mean the -- any member of the foreign service, it's -- it's basic information. You are a target of foreign intelligence. They would have gone through different types of security briefings, both in the United States and by the State Department's regional security officials as well as members of the intelligence community.

So this decision by his -- this is why I refer back to this as security negligence. He willfully disregarded, you know, security protocols that are well established, that are there to protect national security interests within the region.

SAVIDGE: Yes. And even though he said they talked of nothing sensitive.

Jonathan Wackrow -- great to talk to you. Thank you very much.

WACKROW: Thanks a lot -- Martin.

SAVIDGE: And coming up, what we know about new claims against Congressman Devin Nunes and how he could be wrapped up in the scheme to dig up dirt on Joe Biden in Ukraine.

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